Here is President Trump, on the day a white supremacist killed at least 49 Muslims in New Zealand, denying that right-wing extremism is a serious threat:
This is appalling. Right-wing extremism is responsible for 73% of the terrorist murders in the US over the past decade and for all 50 of them in 2018. This, not the women and children exercising their legal rights by seeking asylum at the southern border, is a crisis worthy of presidential attention.
Why does Trump refuse to acknowledge right-wing extremism as a threat? Odds are he regards white supremacists as among his strongest supporters. The New Zealand shooter was unequivocal. Calling immigrants “invaders” as the President does, the shooter said he supports Trump as ” a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” In his pro forma denunciation of the attack, Trump said nothing to disown this avowal, or to denounce the white identity politics that motivate it.
New Zealand Prime Minister Ardern justifiably needled Trump about this on a phone call, telling the President the US could provide support by joining her message of “sympathy and love for all Muslim communities.” Trump has certainly not done that and never will. He advocated a ban on Muslims entering the US and only gave up on it when the Supreme Court told him he had to:
Even today, his travel ban is preventing people from some Muslim countries from entering the US.
Let’s also recall Trump’s reaction to the Fascist-inspired white supremacists demonstrating in Charlottesville against Jews in August 2017:
The simple fact is that we’ve got a racist, Islamophobe president who sees nothing wrong with white supremacy and right-wing extremism. His close relationships with Jewish lawyers and his Jewish son-in-law have done nothing to reduce Trump’s sympathy with extremists. Contact with Jews is not necessarily a hindrance to anti-Semitism: one of Mussolini’s favorite mistresses was Jewish.
Trump is enabling extremism. This will no doubt lead to further death and destruction. Stay tuned for much worse.
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